One of Mommy’s techniques for calming Alex down is using the tried and true method of reading him a bedtime story.  Sometimes though, it backfires and just gets him wound up even more.  That’s what happened this night as Mommy read Alex The Grouchy Ladybug.  I heard the giggles all the way downstairs and had to get it on tape.  Excuse the video quality, but I didn’t want them to know that I was filming them. 

Alex has been busy over the last month.  He’s getting really good at "cruising" around the furniture, and he even figured out how to crawl.  Mostly, he crawls Army-style, but if he sees something across the room that he really wants, he’ll pick up his belly and crawl on his hands & knees.

Alex inherited a rocking chair from his cousin Annie.  It’s a good place to sleep or watch his favorite TV shows, like Lingo on the Game Show Network.

 

We celebrated Alex’s cousin Olivia’s 4th birthday (her first birthday in the US) last month. 

   

He gets confused sometimes by Daddy’s brothers.  They look like Daddy, but they aren’t him!  This is Uncle Andy.

Since he’s getting bigger and now has 6 teeth, Mommy thought Alex might be ready for some more grown-up food, but here’s what happened when she tried to feed him beef stew…

A couple of days ago Alex got into the dirty laundry and decided he wanted to try on Mommy’s uniform.

He really wanted to be like Mommy, so he even tried it with a bra!

Here he is today, on his 10-month birthday.

See you all again soon!

Alex loves to stand now. He gets quite upset at times when we won’t help him get up.  We keep telling him that he needs to learn to crawl before he can walk.  He tells us not to waste our time with such old, tired clichés.  He’s not even talking yet and already he’s smarting off to his parents.  Usually when he gets up into the standing position, he looks a lot like Elvis, or at least a young Forrest Gump teaching Elvis how to dance. 

He’s also trying to walk a lot now.  He’s working his way around furniture slowly, and invariably the second you take your hand out of catching mode, he falls to the ground.  But if he isn’t willing to crawl first, then he’s going to have to take his lumps going the hard way.

One other note about the video, you’ll notice that Alex’s ultra-hip mom is already teaching the young lad some classic 70s disco tunes.  It won’t be long before he’s wearing white leisure suits and strutting down the street like John Travolta.

He’s also starting to eat some new foods.  So far, besides the cereal that we told you about a few weeks ago, he’s had prunes (yum), sweet potatoes (yummy), apple sauce (yum-o!), and peas (yuck).  He looks forward to getting to eat the new foods in the evening, but he still wonders when he’s going to get to eat the food that’s on Mommy and Daddy’s plates.   Here he is enjoying some delicious prunes.

But mouths aren’t just for eating.  Mouths also come in very handy when a kid wants to make lots of noise.  Alex is starting to verbalize a lot more and he makes a variety of sounds.  His current favorite sounds are "mumuma," "phblttt," and "hey!"  What’s funny is that he usually says "hey" right when someone new walks into the room.  He’s a very cordial little boy.  But mouths aren’t just for talking either.  As this picture shows, Alex learned one day that if he held a toy in his mouth, it freed up his hands to do other things.  Genius!

While all of these new things are cool, our favorite trick that Alex can do now is sit up by himself.  He’s still mastering the skill, but just this week he started doing it and already he’s learning to play with toys while he sits by himself.  We’re hoping soon that he’ll be able to fold laundry while he sits by himself.  Otherwise, it’s just going to sit in the basket.  Here’s some video of Alex doing his new trick.

 

 

 

 

I’d love to be able to provide you with video of his technique, but he has a sneaky knack of knowing when the camera is expecting him to perform.  Luckily, he doesn’t know when the camera is behind him while he is stuck on his belly trying to learn his next trick that he calls "THE CRAWL."  Enjoy!

P.S. – Sorry for the crappy video quality. We didn’t have the professional lighting crew for the evening shift.